


My Brother and Them

by behindbucky



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 3+1, Backstory, Bullying, Crossdressing, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied Johnlock, Johnlock - Freeform, Kid Sherlock, Kinda, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Other, Punk, Teen Mycroft, mystrade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindbucky/pseuds/behindbucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If deducing Mycroft Holmes is like playing a game of chess then deducing his love life, Sherlock thinks, must be like playing blindfolded in your sleep against the grand master. Who isn't sleeping at all.</p><p>- Sherlock Holmes saw her three times. And then a fourth. Kid!Sherlock mainly. -</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Decidedly Soggy Green Patch

 

     “Sherlock? Hey baby Sherlock hey guess what?”

The taunts trail behind a skinny child, shoulders thrown back, smart rucksack balanced on his eight years old back, curls erratic down the back of his neck. He pays them no attention until the voices dance in front of him, blocking his way out of the school playground. A strange term for the fighting, mocking, (he hates to say it) bullying arena the tarmac square serves for. If he were poetic he would say it were fitting, a ground for the other boys to play, him as their toy. But he isn’t and right now they’ve surrounded him, pack animals around their prey, moving and he knew he wouldn’t make it out – not when they’d spent the last hour of class muttering and shooting lingering glances at him, laughing in that way obnoxiously stupid boys do.

“Poof. That’s what little Locke, you’re a poof” Sherlock never will understand the ‘little’ that seems to attached to his name. He’s actually older that one of them and taller than three. 

“Faggot” Another chimes in.

“Oh but I forget, we can’t blame him for it. It’s his brother that gave it to him. The house must be riddled with it. I bet they sleep in the same bed and ev’rything. That’s cause you love him don’t you Locke you love your poof of a brother don’t you” For eight year olds they were admittedly well spoken, Sherlock has to admit, even if their logic was completely flawed.

  
“Sherlock loves Mycroft Sherlock loves Mycroft”

They’re chanting it at him, waiting for him to take his turn, make his move. And Sherlock wants to scream because of course he doesn't, he doesn't love his brother, he hates him just as he hates them and their stupid words he doesn’t understand! There is a reason why Sherlock Holmes hates chess. It’s all about the facade, don’t make an offensive move until you can turn the tables and win. And right now Sherlock is going to lose.

* * *

 

     It is at the end of march, when the garden is beginning to dry out and go from puddle between the wall and the gate into decidedly soggy green patch, that Sherlock encounters what he will later recognise as the meaning behind the word 'poof'.  
He had speculated over the meaning – a matter which lead to a confusing and slightly disorientating memory of Daddy singing to him and Mummy laughing because Mycroft is a dragon trying to eat Sherlock.*  It's now then, when the grass is so and all the life is starting to come back from wherever it goes to eat Christmas lunch that Sherlock discovers a new, and very interesting thing to deduce. 

* * *

 

     The worm pokes back up from its hideout in the grass and already long pail, near skeletal fingers curl around it. The next thing the worm knows it’s watching its patch of grass from inside a layer of glass where it’s being taken further down the garden – to where the real animals hide. Sherlock grins slightly, Mummy had sighed when he explained what he was doing with her jam jars but, with the promise of “if it’s bigger than the palm of your hand let it go” and that he wouldn’t touch any baby animals he had been allowed outside to collect his data.

  
There is a mound behind the tree-house that Sherlock is standing in, welly boots too big for him sliding around in the mud slightly, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, hands deep in god knows what. It is while he is listening for the tell tale rustle of the creature he disturbed that Sherlock realises there is more than one person in his tree house.  
 One is shocking enough, Mycroft is extremely forbidden unless it’s a very exceptional circumstance, not that he would want to go in “that childish den” anyway. But two is confusing. And Sherlock wants to know more. Something in his head tells him to go find Mummy, but if it is Mycroft escaping from them again then he certainly wouldn’t want Sherlock to tell on him. Anyway, this is Sherlock’s adventure and there is no room in it for Mummy. It should have been obvious really and now he’s looking it’s clear – there are two sets of relatively fresh footprints  leading up but not coming down the ladder. Sure enough one is Mycroft’s, Sherlock can tell by the pattern from his boots, but the other one is not familiar. The pair haven’t been up much longer than Sherlock has been in the garden, the mud is still wet and dark but he would have seen them if they had gone up while he was outside.

  
Curious Sherlock climbs the ladder, careful not to tread on the existing foot-prints – they might be useful as evidence later.  
If either of the pair were watching they would have seen two small hands grasp knowingly at the edge of the house, followed by a mess of dark brown curls and two startlingly grey blue eyes – wide with interest. As it is neither of them are paying attention to Sherlock, they are sat on Sherlock’s solitary cushion (which has been removed from his treasure storage chest) with their backs almost fully turned. Sherlock can see his brother, head turned slightly, facing down. The second person, turned further away from him, is a lady. They have long black hair and their ear has a small silver stud gripped in it. This is how Sherlock knows they are a lady.

It is at the point where Mycroft and the lady appear to be leaning toward each other, much like Mummy and Daddy do, that Sherlock lets go of the wood and lands with a thump on the wet grass.  
By the time Mycroft pokes his head out of the tree house Sherlock is already out of sight pressed against the trunk of the tree grinning to himself. His deductions had been right, there were two people in the tree. But that only poses the bigger question – what was another person doing with Mycroft in the tree, and why were they holding hands? 

* * *

* * *

**Well hello there, thank's for reading! Hope it wasn't too unbearable? Any feedback would be lovely...**  
Hopefully I'll get the next chapter finished sooner rather than later...  
 _xxx - Thisonesforthefreaks_

 

_< * This is referencing the 1960s song 'Puff the magic Dragon' :) >_


	2. A Queen is lost

A boy, nine years old, watches as smoke curls into sky. It could look like dragon’s breath, were they real. It merges into low clouds and the boy wonders how much smoke there'd been after his friend was put down. Did that curl up into the sky? Did the clouds swallow it up into their hungry grasp as they do now? Perhaps if he could know he could stop thinking, wondering,remembering. How much smoke was there when his body burned?

He’s seen the ashes. They were there in between the twigs that made the funeral fire. He’s lost his queen. His greatest ally.

He tells his brother this when they were playing last night.

His brother shut him down.

“He was only a pawn Sherlock. Surely you realise this? You have to learn to care less about things that will only get knocked down before you do.” Mycroft takes his turn. White bishop to F4. Black bishop down.

A boy nine years old watches the smoke curling into the sky and thinks how pointless affection must be.

———-

When his father brings him a charred sausage off the bonfire the boy carefully lets it roll under the bush, uneaten. He kicks it away with his toe. Just to be sure.

———-

Early evening light is often sickeningly romanticised -the pale scarlet sky, crimson hues and midges swarming everywhere you’re not quite looking.

It’s under this light, then, that two figures leaning against each other legs wrapped around the iron gate they’re sat on, facing the sunset, would only be something found in a romance novel. It’s horrific how some chance couple can fit into that picture-book, fairytale romance setting, thinks the nine year old looking on from the distance.

There should be something wrong with this picture.

Life isn’t fair, it isn’t just jigsaw pieces that fit together perfectly. That’s what an older brother said, just days ago.

From this angle the boy absently kicking a sticking stick for a lost queen can see the figures leaning on each other. One with short, regulation cropped, hair - precisely combed, sticking up anyway. The other with long hair, down to her waist. From the way it falls it’s ties in a ponytail. But from the way it’s sticking out all over the place it’s not tied very well. Which, incidentally, is odd. Mycroft never brings girls home who have sticking out hair and beaten up leather jackets dropped on the floor behind them. Mycroft brings home girls with blond hair and fancy blouses and oh so polished mannerisms. Mycroft’s girls don’t look, as his mother always puts it, like they’ve been dragged though a hedge backward.

Sherlock can hear is mother calling from the Kitchen window. It’s getting dark and he has homework to do for tomorrow - unlike Mycroft his school doesn’t finish for the summer until next week.

He marches back inside, kicking at his heals. But when he throws a look back toward the gate the figures are gone.

Something isn’t right about this girl.

Who is she?

She’s the same one from the tree house, that much is certain.

It had puzzled Sherlock for weeks, a good month, nearly two. Who that person in the tree house was. He’d tried to deduce it. To work it out. But there wasn’t enough information. After all it was Mycroft, there’s never enough information when it comes to Mycroft. There just wasn’t.

But there’s been different girls since then and he’d got bored; There was more interesting things to think about. Like the new boy in his class whose father was apparently serving time for leaking state secrets to a political terrorist gang. And the girl whose sister ran away three weeks ago because her mother had picked up the cocaine addiction she said she’d kicked for good when the little brother died, again.

But there she was, the mystery girl still on the scene. But why hasn’t his family met her yet if she’s still around?

Mycroft _always_ brings his girls home.

Sherlock things it might be time to start playing tactically again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure who's aware of the British education system or not, but often private (so, paid) schools finish at least a week earlier than regular comprehensive ones. So, in my mind, Mycroft goes to a private boarding school, probably Harrow or somewhere like that, while Sherlock is still at the local primary school (which given the area I envisage them living in would still be quite, lets say, upmarket. He'll have 3 more years* before he moves on and joins Mycroft, although he'll hate every minute of it for at least the first two years.)
> 
> *Taken from Harrow's FAQ Page: 'Most pupils come to Harrow in the September following their 13th birthday. This arrangement is negotiable for pupils who are a year ahead of their chronological age in their present school and whose birthdays are in July, August or September.' - Which of course Sherlock and Mycroft both are. (Although I'm British and wasn't aware you /could/ skip years over here!)
> 
> Anyway that isn't particularly relevant to the story, apart from a bit of background info to their lives, but I spent a little while considering this when I was writing so I thought I'd include it here.


End file.
